


5 Time's the Charm

by Killbothtwins



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: But things spiraled, Everyone loves Steve, I Don't Even Know, No pairings - Freeform, Platonic Cuddling, Protective Avengers, SO MUCH FLUFF, Team Bonding, This was supposed to be a five and one, adorableness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-08
Updated: 2016-02-06
Packaged: 2018-03-16 23:51:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 5,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3507266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Killbothtwins/pseuds/Killbothtwins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five Times Steve Rogers fell asleep on top of another Avenger, plus one time they fell asleep on top of each other. Mostly just Steve cuddling a lot. I don't apologize. </p><p>OR,</p><p>The fic that was supposed to just be a 5+1 and now has 14 chapters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

1\. Tony

 

Steve blearily registers a scuffle outside the room he’s in. He sways on the little cot as he wonders if it would really be worth it to go out there. He hears one voice now, angry and also a little bit amused.

Steve can’t bring himself to jump when the automatic door practically flies open, the mechanics apparently hacked so that it opens at Tony’s bidding.

 

Oh, yeah, he knows Tony,

“...and you can’t honestly tell me that Fury knows about this, actually, no, don’t tell me-”

Tony’s voice cuts off suddenly as he gets closer, normally something that would be a rare occurrence and something akin to a miracle.

 

Steve considers closing his eyes instead.

“-Steve, what happened?”

Tony asks him, probably not for the first time.

 

Steve waves a hand dismissively. At least, he thinks he does. It’s probably more like a twitch.

“Doctors...blood samples...loud voices?”

Steve asks, cracking an eye open at him. Oh, he had closed them. Okay, then.

 

He’s pretty sure that sentence makes some sort of coherent sense. Probably.

 

Tony, pretty much the expert on drunk and or sleep deprived speech, twists his face into something weird.

“Yeah, the SHIELD doctors got a little excited about their blood samples. Seriously, dude, it’s a good thing you’re a super soldier, because I’m pretty sure I saw Dracula and his entire extended family drooling over in the corner at the sheer volume of the blood they had in those little bag things. I’m surprised you have any blood left in your body…”

 

Tony stops talking suddenly and eyes him suspiciously, as if he isn’t actually sure if that last statement was true after all.

 

“And I was promised juice and a cookie.”

Steve tells him. Then he tips over.

 

Before he knows it, he feels Tony awkwardly holding him up, still apparently clad in the Iron Man suit he had used to break into the medical facility. Steve is apparently so used to Tony in his armor that he doesn’t notice the difference anymore. He isn’t actually sure if this is a good thing or not. His eyes try to open, but fail in an almost impressive way.

 

“Uh, okay, Cap. Just...take a nap. Or something.”

The shoulder of the Iron Man suit is surprisingly comfortable.

 

Tony keeps babbling as he half-walks, half-carries him out the exit. Steve keeps his eyes closed and enjoys the ride. 

“Dude, I ever tell you about that one Red Cross nurse I met at a party? Seriously, the whole time I was terrified I was going to wake up in a bathtub full of ice with a cell phone taped to my hand. Do you get that reference? Seriously, dude, though, when I woke up, I’m almost positive I found a little blood pressure cuff thingy, like she probably stole my blood while I was sleeping and is now using it to make tiny, genius clones…”

 

Steve’s pretty sure Howard would appreciate the irony of Captain America drooling into the shoulder of a Stark invention. 


	2. Chapter 2

2\. Clint

 

Steve almost runs face-first into the elevator door. Whatever. He thinks he still feels some dirt stuck on his uniform that he  really  wishes been left in New Zealand where it belonged. Also, he is pretty sure that same dirt is dusting his face, shoulders, and feet.

 

Also, apparently, a dude who throws snake-shaped boomerangs for a villain power? Not as lame as it sounds. 

Steve thinks he’s going to have the bruises for a week. For him, that’s a long time, okay? Or whatever.

 

He stumbles into the Avenger’s living room. As it turns out, Steve is also too tired to make the three foot trek to his own room. He plops on the couch, face-first, ignoring the startled  Ooomph  of the person sitting there.

 

Steve is almost positive that he is getting dirt all over Tony’s ridiculously expensive couch, and he is also 100% certain that he doesn't care. 

He feels a shifting under him, where he’s pretty sure whoever he squashed on his descent to the couch is making small, uncertain squeaks.

 

Steve also does not care about this. It could be Adolf Hitler that he is definitely  not  snuggling with right now, and he would not care. Actually, no, he would care a little bit. Whatever. 

As Steve starts to get a little delirious from exhaustion, he also tries to figure out who is currently now watching  The Hobbit  from underneath him.

 

The person has had time to get quite comfortable, which means that Steve had also been there longer than he thought. Upon taking a deep breath, he smells top-brand dog shampoo, Sour Patch kids, and Natasha’s favorite coffee.

 

So, obviously, it’s Clint.

 

“Oh, dude, AWESOME!”

Clint yells from above him, watching, from what Steve can hear, a scene with an extremely large spider and also maybe some archers.

 

Steve doesn’t so much as stir, still bone-weary from his last SHIELD mission. He feels Clint looks guiltily down at him, but doesn’t open his eyes. 

 

He’s back asleep when he hears Clint say;

“Dude, that chick has red hair  and  she can shoot a bow!  Tony! What’s the status on marrying fictional characters?”

 


	4. Chapter 4

3\. Bruce

 

Steve rouses himself with a slight groan. He is almost positive there had been a battle going on, last he saw of the conscious world. Before he can bring himself to actually notice if there are still giant, flamethrower-wielding robots with laser eyes around, he takes stock of his surroundings, not bothering to open his eyes.

 

He’s surprised to notice that he is, oddly, quite comfortable. 

 

Sure, there’s little bits of broken glass and robot scattered around him, and Steve knows from sadly too much experience that there is  no  New York street that is comfortable to rest on, but he’s comfortable regardless.

 

He feels his chin tucked into someone or something warm’s neck, and his legs seem to be drawn up so that he’s nestled into a safe, comfortable position. Without his knowledge, Steve makes a small, sleepy noise, causing the person under him to shift. 

 

“ Awww.”

Steve forces his eyes open at the sound of his teammate’s voices. He looks straight up, and into the startled eyes of Bruce Banner. 

 

They shift apart awkwardly, getting a disappointed sigh from Tony. At this, Steve shakes himself off and stands, feeling the bump that has formed on the back of his head and checking on the state of his other teammates.

 

He gives Bruce a hand up, who is post-Hulk, but, thankfully, still has his pants on, and turns to his teammates.

 

Thor, who Steve is almost positive was one of the ones cooing at him earlier, elbows Tony for interrupting their definitely-not-cuddle. 

“What happened?”   
  


Steve asks. There’s still a faint smell of smoke and the distant sound of police sirens, but it looks like the battle is pretty much over. 

 

Natasha cracks a rare smile, and Clint pretends to be engrossed in examining his arrows.

“Trust me,”

Tony says,

“You do not want to know.”

* * *

  
  
  
  


That evening, post-debriefing and subsequent shower, Steve steps into his room, toweling his hair. 

 

He stops short when he sees a small, white square of paper laying innocently on his dresser. Cautiously, he flips the photo over, and immediately smiles. 

 

Steve tucks it into one of his sketchbooks, where no one will ask why he has a picture of Captain America and the Hulk  definitely cuddling  on a battle-ravaged Manhattan street. 


	5. Chapter 5

4\. Natasha

 

“All I’m saying is that if you didn’t want to get stuck in the closet, maybe you shouldn’t have shot that guard.”

 

“Yeah, well, I barely even got his Achilles. He’s a wimp.”

Steve sighs and makes an attempt to shift. Natasha tries to move, but the wall gets in her way. She glares at it, wishing-.

 

“No explosions in confined spaces, Natasha.”

Sometimes she hates the way he can read his teammate’s minds.

 

She pouts overdramatically.

 

It will be at least six hours until backup can come for them, and until then, she’s firmly stuck in a three foot wide closet with Captain America.

 

And she thought the Latverians with machine guns searching for them outside were bad enough.

  
  


Steve winces as her elbow jams into the joint of his shoulder. "How long has it been now?" He asks, the very picture of a bored child on a road trip. 

 

"I don't know."

She grits out, and tries to remember what Coulson can do to her should she paralyze his childhood hero. It only helps a little.

 

* * *

 

Steve hasn’t slept for almost 30 hours. First, there had been a mission with Sam somewhere in Russia, then Bucky hadn’t been able to sleep and so Steve hadn’t either, then this.

 

Also, he was pretty sure that the sleep deprivation was starting to have serious side effects on his mind, because that master assassin next to him sure did look comfortable. Really comfortable. 

  
  


The soldiers outside were amateurs, jokes really. It had only been by chance that a group of them trying to find someplace to get their fix had stumbled upon their spying. If they hadn’t found the two of them by now, they probably wouldn’t ever.

 

So,  a tiny, traitorous part of Steve’s brain whispered in a voice that sounded an awful lot like Tony,  I bet you could just fall asleep right here .

 

Steve felt his chin dropping.

Nooo, brain. He told it halfheartedly. Then he fell asleep. 

* * *

  
Natasha felt a weight on her shoulder, her spy instincts almost taking over and barely avoiding flipping whatever it is off of her. She looks over, instantaneously glad she had resisted. Steve Roger’s head is resting on her black-clad shoulder, his mouth open in an adorable half-snore. 

 

Natasha Romanoff was not known for describing things as  adorable.  Deadly, maybe, or idiotic, or ‘about to blow up in t minus- two minutes’, (or in Clint’s case, probably all three), but there was no other way to describe this. 

  
  


Steve’s blond hair had fallen over his eyes, giving him the look of a broke college student more than a frozen WWII Captain with a school named after him and his own memorial in Brooklyn. His legs are pulled in tight due to the space of the closet, and the entire mass of a super soldier rests on Natasha. She decides that she will deal with it this once. 

* * *

  
  


Four hours later, the door swings open without a sound. She doesn’t bother drawing her gun, having heard Clint and Tony (more specifically the latter) from a mile away. They open the door, peering in curiously. 

 

If you wake him up, 

She signs with half-asleep hands, hoping a combination of her crappy sign language skills and a very intense glare will get the point across, 

I will burn everything you love. 

 

Tony raises his hands in a gesture of surrender, closes the door, opens it again, and throws Clint’s coat in at her before shutting the closet again quickly.

 

She smirks and pulls it around the two of them. 


	6. Chapter 6

5\. Thor

 

“Rogers! Report!”

Steve paws lazily at his ear, the voices becoming more and more screechy the more he sits there. 

 

He’s sitting crosslegged on the ground, the asphalt slightly hot beneath his uniform-clad legs.  The voices are still yelling at him, very annoyingly, but he manages to tune them out and starts spreading around some bits of broken glass with his finger.

  
  


He hears footsteps, uncomfortably loud, skidding until they reach his position. He spreads the glass around a bit more, letting them scrape across the ground and make patterns. 

 

The person belonging to the footsteps leans down, touches his shoulder gently. He looks up, squinting. Why was it so bright out? Whose idea was that?

“Peggy?”

 

He asks the woman, who lets out a curse. She holds a hand to her ear, and Steve watches her fingers dance nervously around strands of hair. Peggy liked to keep her hair pinned back, so that it was out of her way, and Steve thought she probably would have cut it even shorter if it hadn’t been against regulation. 

 

“Rogers is down. Concussion, I think.”

She tells her ear, and Steve hums quietly, listening to something explode off in the distance. 

 

“You gotta tell Farnsworth to set up on the ridge.”

He tells her seriously. 

“Buck needs to go someplace high, but you gotta tell Gabe the position.”

The woman curses again.

  
  


Steve looks up at her again, the sun still too bright. 

 

Both of them jump when Steve’s ear squawks again. Or maybe she has one too.

“Widow, I could use some heLP!”

The voice increases in pitch at the last word, and the woman scowls, looking back and forth from Steve to a rooftop in the distance.

  
  


He plucks at a burned portion in his uniform, waiting for her to choose. She leans down, so suddenly that it makes Steve dizzy, and he blinks. She holds his face in her hands, looking at his eyes.

 

“I’m gonna go check on Clint, okay, Steve? I’ll send someone else over. Don’t die in the process, you hear me?  Do not die. ”

Steve cocks his head, not understanding.

 

“ Dammit.”

The woman hisses, sprinting off into the distance like her heels are on fire. 

  
  
  


Steve traces the outlines of clouds with his eyes, ignoring the occasional robot as it flew over. The street feels nice against his face (apparently he had lain down), and he thinks he sees a cloud that looks like the Brooklyn skyline when there’s a loud clap of thunder.

 

He jerks in surprise, but returns to staring at the clouds, although they’re somewhat blacker now. 

 

“Captain!”

Someone calls, landing beside him with a thump. It smells like ozone and firecrackers, and Steve tries to bury his head in his arm.

  
  
  


Something heavy hits the ground beside him, like the owner hadn’t cared enough to place it down softly. The smell of ozone gets stronger, and Steve suddenly feels himself being lifted up, slightly, so that his blonde head hangs limply to the side in the air, rather than on the street.

 

“G’way, Buck.”

He says, trying to push at the hands.

 

They stay on him, firm but gentle. He opens his eyes, face to face with another blonde man, who grins at him.

“Worry not, shield brother,”

The man says, lifting him up and over his shoulder.

  
  


Steve grumbles halfheartedly, then takes a handful of the warm red cape and settles in.

 

“The Lady Natasha has informed me that the Tower is equipped to care for you.”

And Steve feels air whip past his face, like he’s flying. He huddles his face into the warm, surprisingly cozy shoulder of Thor, and falls sound asleep.   



	7. Chapter 7

+1

  
  


“Welcome home, Sirs.”

JARVIS tells the Avengers, making them all wince simultaneously. 

 

“I am going to sleep for a thousand years.”

Tony says, and can’t even bring himself to feel guilty when Steve musters up a half hearted glare at that.

  
  


Natasha brushes a few shards of glass out of her hair, and they all watch them fall to the ground with a little tinkle, utterly disinterested. Tony comes to the terrible conclusion that he is  going to have to walk the ten feet to his room, why,  at the same time as everyone else. Steve sighs.

 

“Okay, this isn’t going to work.”

Steve says, disappearing into his room (which is slightly closer than the rest of theirs, the jerk), and reappears holding literally a mound of blankets.

 

With an exhausted push, the supersoldier bats the furniture out of the way and plops the blankets down unceremoniously. 

 

“Okay, sit.”

He says. They stare. Tony looks at the ginormous pile of blankets. He shrugs, then practically hurls himself towards the first fleece blanket he catches sight of. 

  
  


Clint follows suit next, grabbing the blanket that’s closest to purple, snatching Natasha, and claiming a spot for the two of them dangerously close to Tony’s butt. 

 

With a slightly less deafening volume than usual (it  really had been a hard mission), Thor screeches “My friends!”, then promptly lays down and starts snoring. Mjolnir sits nearby, inexplicably covered in a little ducky blanket.

  
  


Bruce looks at the pile, then at Steve. With a small shrug, Bruce secures his very loose post-Hulk pants, grabs a comforter, and punches Tony in the side until he grumbles and moves over.

  
  


Steve smiles at the team, already asleep, snoring, and mumbling about mutant show ponies. He stretches a blanket from couch to couch, making a sort of tent, and instructs JARVIS to turn out the lights. 

 

He grins and lightly nudges Clint away from where he had begun to wrap around Thor, redirecting him to Natasha. He pulls a blanket over Tony and Bruce, then lays down and pulls the warmest comforter he has over himself.

“Goodnight, goobers.”

 

He says, and is out like a light too fast to notice Natasha awake and smiling at him.


	8. The other side of things 1- Tony

1\. Tony

 

Tony apparently needs to suit up to go into SHIELD now, because apparently, SHIELD are even bigger idiots than he originally thought, which was actually a pretty huge accomplishment.

 

He stalks through the front doors of the medical facility, sure to glare at anyone who looks like they might be challenging his authority. He thinks the suit might help a little with the scariness.

 

“Where. Is. Our. Captain.”  
Tony tells the room, his faceplate flipped up so that the doctors can get a view of his full disapproving, scathing look.

 

A doctor in the back squeaks, which Tony takes as an admission of guilt.

 

He raises a single eyebrow, something he’s been practicing since he met Natasha, and the doctor breaks down.

  


“We just needed to do a few tests on the serum! It’s fascinating, really, what with-”  
The doctor lets out another terrified squeak, making Tony smirk. “Explain on the way, Doogie Howser, while I determine whether or not I need to set the Black Widow loose on this facility.”

  


Another squeak.

  


* * *

  


Tony is, in fact, contemplating calling Natasha, except she’s in Egypt this week. Not that that would stop her from getting there, but Tony feels sorry for any of the criminals that she has to take out along the way.

  


He’s berating yet another SHIELD doctor who had come in, proud of the tests on Captain America. Tony sends a silent message to JARVIS to have all the blood destroyed or sent to Bruce.

  


This time, they send in a greying man to grump at him, hoping that he’ll leave them alone.

 

“This it?”

He asks a terrified male nurse, who nods so furiously his head is in danger of snapping off.

  


“Seriously, who let the cast of Grey’s Anatomy in here? And you can’t honestly tell me that Fury knows about this, actually, no, don’t tell me-”

Tony knows very well that little goes on in the building without Fury’s consent. That one, he will call Natasha for.

 

* * *

  


Steve blinks at the doorway, trying to make him out, or, more likely, judging by the buttload of blood being salivated over by the scientists, trying to figure out where all the freaking dragons came from.

 

Tony happily boots up one of the repulsors on his suit, and the doctors disappear like magic. Freaking SHIELD.

  


“Yo, Stevie boy. Stars and Stripes. What happened?”

He asks, to the surprisingly pale figure sitting on the cot. Tony doesn’t like the way this looks, especially when Steve looks at the wall next to him with glazed eyes, not acknowledging his presence.

  


“Steve, what happened?”

He barks out, and is relieved to see the super soldier open his eyes with an almost adorable confusion.

  


He slurs out a few words, and Tony answers him to the best of his ability, remembering to keep the part where he almost slaughtered the entire hallway to himself. He’s grown as a person.

 

* * *

 

“...I’m surprised you have any blood left in your body.”

Tony says, watching the blonde lilt to the side alarmingly.

 

Steve raises an eyebrow, still 90 percent sass even if 90 percent of his blood is gone (the other 10 percent is patriotism, if you were wondering), and looks dizzy again.

 

“And I was promised juice and a cookie.”

  


And that’s how Tony finds himself dragging an unconscious lump of 95-year old war hero out of a SHIELD hospital.

 

* * *

 

Happy opens the door for him when he notices Tony coming, although he sighs a bit when he notices the new addition.

“Here. Hold this.”

  


Tony tells the driver, pushing Steve into Happy’s confused arms and letting his suit disassemble into a small briefcase.

Happy lets out a small grunt, but other than that, is perfectly happy to hold up the Captain.

  


“Nice to see positions reversed, Sir.”

He says with a straight face, throwing Steve back at Tony as soon as his hands are free of the red and gold gauntlets of his suit.

  


“Shuttup. Help me get him in the car.”

 

Steve grumbles for a moment as Tony places (okay, heaves, because he doesn’t have the suit on anymore and he passed Steve’s age years ago) him into the car, his head lolling slightly, but remaining sound asleep.

  
  


Tony gets into the car, settling his feet on something expensive that probably shouldn’t have feet on it.

 

“Back to the Tower, Sir?”

Happy asks, looking faintly amused. Jerk.

 

“Yeah. Wait no. What do you do with guys suffering from blood loss?”

He asks, and to his credit, Happy doesn’t bat an eye, much less waste time wondering about his boss’ friends tendencies.

  


“I’m no expert, sir, but I think you’re supposed to get their blood sugar up.”

“Juice and a cookie, sort of thing, huh?”

“What, sir? Should I take you back to the tower?"

 

“Shuttup Happy. Take us to Mickey D’s. And stop looking so smug.”

“Already on my way, Sir.”


	9. The other side of things 2-Clint

2\. Clint

 

“Hey, Clint- what the hell? Why are you so dirty?”   
  


“I was crushed by Captain America’s abs.”

 

Clint stumbled by her, looking slightly stunned. Natasha turned to watch him go, opened her mouth to say something, and turned around again. 

 

Nope. She wasn’t touching that one. 


	10. The other side of things 3- Hulk

“I think we’re going to need some assistance.”

Natasha grits out over the comms, her tone the closest to “holy crap, what the hell do I do” that Tony has ever heard out of the assassin’s mouth. 

 

He exchanges a look with Clint, who had been grounded when the building he’d been perched on had been taken out, and sprints toward her. 

 

  
Clint shoots back arrows as they run, and Tony randomly fires repulsors towards anything that looks vaguely like an evil robot. If that means he hits a few subarus on accident, well, Tony isn’t saying anything.

  
  


The two skid to a stop at Widow’s last known position, their mouths falling open.

  
  


Clint mutters something that probably shouldn’t be repeated in French, then again in Chinese.

 

The Hulk is fully Hulked out, his face drawn tight in rage, batting robots aside like rag dolls. Cap lies at his feet, his eyes shut and a huge gash on his head. Tony isn’t even sure that The Other Guy even knows he’s there, but then a laser-wielding robot steps a little too close to the Captain.

  
  


Steve doesn’t stir as the Hulk roars, loudly, and smashes all of the remaining robots at once. The one who had been trying to get to Steve seems to get the worst treatment, crashing into three Starbucks and seven empty taxis before his punishment is over.

  
Tony stands there, shell-shocked, before he starts to inch his way towards Steve, still lying on the ground, oblivious of the battle going on around him. 

 

The Hulk freezes, the last of the invaders gone, and Tony and Clint stop, both of them having been slowly moving towards the captain. 

  
  


“Star man okay?”   
The Hulk asks, picking up Steve and resting him against his chest.

 

“Uhh, yeah, buddy. But we should probably check on him just in case.”

Clint says. Tony can see the superserum slowly healing Steve’s wound, but he doesn’t think that being held up in the air eight or so feet can be doing him any favors.  

  
  


“Hulk take care of Star Man.”

The green creature insisted, clutching the Captain close to his chest. 

 

The Hulk sat down with a  thump.  Tony stared. In front of him, the Hulk situated himself, Steve hanging limply but not uncomfortably from his arms. Natasha watched with searching eyes as the creature’s eyes began to droop.

 

“Is he  falling asleep ?”

Clint hissed, staring like a kid who had just found out that not only is Santa real, but he had gotten him a pony.

 

“Yep.”

Tony said, slyly taking out his phone.

“That’s adorable.”

He took a picture.

 


	11. The other side of things 4- Natasha

4\. Natasha

  
  
Clint shivers slightly, the bare arms of his uniform not doing him any favors in the drafty (villainous lairs were always drafty, it was how you knew they were bad guys) embassy. Tony shifts slightly so that he’s in front of the archer, his arc reactor maybe giving off a little bit of heat to Clint. 

 

Whatever.

 

A SWAT guy looks curiously at the closet that Clint and Tony are guarding, and lets off a little squeak as Clint starts to growl. 

 

Tony dares to peek in the door once the guy is gone, and quickly has to shut the door again, due to the fear of cooing and waking the two inside. 

 

Natasha had eventually fallen asleep as well, covered in Clint’s jacket and, a couple hours later, Tony’s extra SHIELD jacket, and Steve was still out.

 

Tony knew that Steve hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep the last couple days, due to a series of superhero-related events that the billionaire hadn’t paid much attention to previously. Now, though, Steve was out like a light, sleeping it off. 

 

And sleeping some more. 

 

* * *

 

 

Tony leaned against a pole as he pulled up Flappy Birds on his helmet, sending a signal to Clint’s watch so that the two could play a modified two-player version. 

  
  


A mousy CSI tech glanced at the cupboard, and Tony raised an eyebrow. 

“Move along.”

 

He said.


	12. The other side of things 5- Thor

5\. 

Thor

 

When a huge, angry Norse god storms through the hospital, holding an unconscious Captain America, you get the hell out of the way or help.

 

More than a few doctors and nurses were not brave enough for even an attempt, but eventually, a doctor, a woman who had been working there longer than some of them had been alive, rolled her eyes and treated him.

 

Despite the overabundance of superheroes in her city, though, she didn’t often treat them, although she was sure that they were being hurt plenty. 

 

But SHIELD snapped em up sure quick, and after the Battle of New York, the government was even more careful about letting civilians treat superheroes. 

 

So this particular doctor wasn’t quite sure what to expect when she walked into Captain America’s hospital room. 

 

Not this, though. 

 

* * *

  
  


The doctor opens the door to find five other dirty, exhausted superheroes sitting vigil on the soundly sleeping Captain. 

 

The woman idly stitches up her own wound, only pausing to watch when the Captain shifts about a bit. She continues again, and the doctor thinks of protesting against the obviously awful medical protocol, and thinks better of it.

 

She sighs instead, stepping into the room and examining the concussed patient’s chart. 

 

He’s a lot younger than she expected, actually, and sort of innocent looking. She takes a look at the name on the chart, half expecting CAPTAIN AMERICA to be printed in lieu of a name, but is pleasantly surprised seeing his full name written. 

 

She smiles slightly, thinking of how fitting the plain name is. 

 

“You know you don’t have to be here.”

The doctor comments, tapping the chart. 

“Steve’ll recover just fine on his own. You can leave.”

 

Each of the superheroes stares up at her, like the thought had just occurred to them. 

 

“We could.”   
The large, blonde one rumbled. No one made any move to go. 

 

The doctor smiled softly, and sent a nurse to bring blankets and coffee.

 


	13. +1 Again

+1

Coulson takes his sweet time on the elevator up to Stark’s place (well, he supposes it is the Avenger’s place, now, but Coulson wasn’t there when the ST and RK were knocked off the tower, and it’s all a little too ostentatious for him to think of it of anywhere that Captain America, much less Clint or Nat, would live).

 

Stark had long since given Coulson a passkey to the elevator, complaining that JARVIS was always in a bad mood after getting hacked and pretending it was all his idea, and not Pepper’s. Phil reminds himself to thank her at their next movie night. 

  
  


Coulson stops up short as he notices the heap of fabrics clumped on the floor. He coughs in slight surprise, and Steve's head sticks out out from the blankets forming the tent (because he can see now that’s what it is). 

 

The captain is still in his field garb, minus boots, cowl, and gloves. 

 

His hair is in slight disarray, a youthful beadhead as he pops up to say hello to Phil. 

 

Coulson stares as Steve smiles unapologetically, shifting his gaze to the doughnuts in Coulson’s hand as the same time as Hawkeye pops up next to him, shoulders still covered in a blanket. 

 

“I ever told you I love you?”   
Clint says, grabs the box of doughnuts, and disappears back down into the tent, which Coulson at his closer distance can now see contains the rest of the ragtag superhero team. 

  
  


No one stirs for longer than it takes to inhale doughnuts and somewhat acknowledge his presence (probably the first thing they’ve eaten even after the rigorous mission yesterday, idiots), and just as quickly fall back to sleep, utterly exhausted. 

  
  


Steve ends up between Natasha, who Phil has seen paralyze a man with a hair pin, and Thor, who apparently doesn’t mind sleeping mostly in full chainmail. 

 

Cap sighs contentedly as Coulson blinks in confusion. 

 

With a sudden, slight grin, Coulson texts Fury that he’ll be out for a while, turns on  _ Supernanny,  _ and resigns himself to babysitting the sleeping Avengers. He finds he doesn’t particularly mind. 


	14. +1 Again

+1 Part One

 

If JARVIS had a body, or, indeed, a head, he would have it cocked in slight confusion. Of course, he understands the concept of a sleepover, but Sir has certainly never had cause to have one before, and certainly not as the fully adult that JARVIS knows (and sometimes doubts) he is.

 

Sir, though, is curled around Dr. Banner, who is in turn curled around Captain Rogers. 

 

JARVIS is not sure if this is regular behavior for humans, but his enhanced logic system and internet accessing capabilities tell him no. 

JARVIS takes a moment to pause his weekly game of computer chess with HERBIE (Vulcan, as Sir and Master Richards seemed to have the same propensity for challenges as their creations did), to observe the small group of heroes clustered on the carpet. 

 

Sir is not, as he so often is, trapped in a nightmare or otherwise. He is, for lack of a better phrasing, dead to the world. 

 

JARVIS takes another moment to tilt his metaphorical head slightly, watching as the assassin Miss Romanoff throws a leg, still clothed in a black catsuit, over Hawkeye, who moves in turn to accomodate it. 

 

JARVIS still does not quite understand, but his logic boards make a small whirring as he computes. 

 

Sir wraps his face into Master Thor, and makes a little noise. The Captain Rogers, also so often plagued in nightmares, rests peacefully, using Hawkeye’s chest as a pillow. Suddenly, the pieces click into place for JARVIS, and the only answer that computes to all of the variables reads:  _ adorable,  _ clear in his coding as plain as if Sir had put them there. 

 

JARVIS makes note of this, then makes sure to copy the photographs in at least three areas. 

 

JARVIS also includes a copy in his emergency back-up drives. 

  
If JARVIS had a body, or, indeed, a face, he would certainly be smiling. 


	15. Maria

Maria loves her job, swear she does. 

 

But when her boss is keeping her trapped on a couch with six exhausted superheroes, she occasionally wonders if she should have become a chef after all.

 

She tries to level a glare at the television, where Fury is debriefing them all while looking obnoxiously well-rested, but the eyepatch conveniently blocks Fury’s view. 

 

Thor’s head drops to his chest, only to pop up a minute later. Maria sympathises. 

 

She’d only gone to assist the Avengers (and isn’t  _ that  _ an unexpected statement) about halfway through their mission. 

 

They’d blown up three buildings, a monument, and a small spice shop, been to five different countries, and gotten permanently kicked out of parts of two territories. 

 

And that was  _ after  _ she got there, two weeks after the mission had started.

 

Needless to say, they weren’t doing great. 

 

But Fury, sitting calmly on the screen, either doesn’t see it, or, the much more likely scenario, is purposefully ignoring it.

 

Could have been a chef. 

 

Maybe she’d be making pasta or something right now instead of watching Tony Stark, half drunk on exhaustion, try to argue with Fury. 

 

“Your face is… pancakes.”

Stark mutters petulantly to Fury, waving a hand over a slightly singed Bruce and making a sort of victorious, confused expression like he’d won the argument. Actually, at this point, Maria isn’t really tracking the conversation, so he very well might have. 

 

She’s about to cowboy up and insist, very politely, that her boss should go screw himself and let a couple superheroes get the frick to sleep, when she feels something drop on her lap. 

 

Tensing, Maria looked down at it, finding that  _ it  _ wasn’t really an  _ it  _ at all and more of a Captain America. Because Captain America, who, last she had checked, had been sitting at an approximation to parade rest, not looking tired at all, had slid over and onto her lap as he fell asleep. 

 

She patted slightly sooty blonde hair, gazing cooly up at her boss. 

  
“I think that’s enough for today, sir.”

She says, and ignores Clint’s exhausted  _ “Oh thank sweet Jesus.”  _ as Fury looks down at the sleeping Steve and nods. 

 

The Avengers plop down where they are and sleep instantly, and Natasha falls literally all the way on top of Thor’s back, who doesn’t seem to mind. 

 

Steve snores a little as Maria settles into the couch with a smirk. She turns on Supernanny as Captain America snoozes on her lap. 

  
Maria didn’t even like cooking, anyway. 


End file.
